IT leaders face new levels of complexity as they seek to address business needs

The cloud industry has perpetuated a notion that cloud is simple and cheap, when, in fact, the opposite is often true. While the cloud has enabled all sorts of flexibility and agility, the explosion of available choice has actually driven complexity for most IT teams. As this accelerates, IT leaders will need greater support from their providers to navigate the increasingly complex IT landscape, says Claranet.

The principals behind cloud computing services make IT a simpler, and sometimes cheaper, proposition for organisations to adopt than traditional forms of procuring and using technology. However, while cloud has helped to drive simplicity for end users, it has also increased the capacity for businesses to be more demanding of their IT departments, while expanding the number of potential suppliers and systems that an IT department has to manage and secure. It’s widely accepted that there will not be a single cloud computing platform for all requirements, and that therefore Hybrid cloud solutions will be the way of the future. However, as IT environment spans over a greater number of different ecosystems, the management overhead grows.

Neil Thomas, Claranet’s Product Director, said:

Cloud computing has been marketed as a simpler, easier and cheaper alternative to on-premises IT, but in many respects, the situation is now considerably more complex. Behind the veneer of cloud’s simplicity sits an increasingly complex and difficult-to-manage ecosystem, creating new challenges for the IT department.

“As the cloud industry matures, it’s becoming clear that there is a vast amount of choice, and that there is no one cloud solution for all requirements, creating the more complicated world of Hybrid IT. While choice is a good thing, it also risks becoming a headache as applications and data are spread over multiple systems, creating an overhead that many IT managers don’t have the resource to deal with or manage. Although start-ups might just find it easier to put everything into public cloud, the picture for most businesses is more complex.

“Mid-tier organisations are faced with increasingly complex IT estates, and must balance legacy considerations, different software solutions, and multiple suppliers, which demands new skillsets. Many will have spent a long time trying to consolidate their systems down, but it’s starting to explode out in terms of choice, and the optimum solution today might involve using multiple different infrastructure providers – shifting the IT department’s focus away from the technology to supplier management.

“A supplier who can work over different infrastructures will therefore be essential going forward, simplifying the management process and freeing up the IT department to focus on core business activities. The successful IT departments use their supply chain correctly and partner with trusted suppliers that can offer the support they need. This in turn can help them to deliver the business agility that the industry said that cloud would deliver,” Thomas concluded.